


Rewind (take me home)

by awesternsunset



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awesternsunset/pseuds/awesternsunset
Summary: Somewhat AU, three parts."He doesn't know what the hell it is about her, how a less than five-minute encounter with her—and not even a direct encounter—has this effect on him. But he knows this. He has to see her again."EW/LR. Complete.
Relationships: Leanne Rorish & Ethan Willis, Leanne Rorish/Ethan Willis
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat AU; in three parts.
> 
> LR/EW.
> 
> The characters and the show are definitely not mine, but any spelling and grammar mistakes are. 
> 
> I’m a sucker for well-written medical dramas and pairings that are either doomed to end or are never going to happen. I know it’s a little quiet around here but hopefully this little story makes at least one person happy. 
> 
> I’m sure some of the timings and details are wrong, and I’ve certainly taken some liberties with some of this, but please feel free to not pay too much attention to that. I also know this concept has been done plenty of times before in other fandoms, but hopefully I’ve done this justice here.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

PART I

**i.**

HE FIRST CATCHES a glimpse of her across a wild and frenetic emergency room. It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning and from what he can tell, they’re coming down from the high of a multi-vehicle trauma with casualties beyond what he can see in front of him, various patients stacked against each other and in hallways, waiting on the next available doctor to treat their injuries.

She’s running behind a senior doctor, long ponytail swinging wildly in the air as she keeps up with the frantic pace of the room. She’s young; fresh-faced and wide-eyed. He guesses she is either in her final year of medical school or first year of residency, from the deference to the older doctor barking orders at her across a patient losing blood by the gallon from the gaping wound in his side, and the slight way her gloved hands shake as she runs an ultrasound wand across the patient’s chest. He sees the slight frown that mars her face as she realises the patient is fast on his way to becoming another ill-fated loss, and he is struck by a sudden and sharp instinct to go over there and lie a hand on her shoulder, to provide her with some degree of consolation that he is not entitled to give.

He’s thrown from his gaze as someone bumps in to him, and he turns to find the glare of his CO boring into him and the tail end of a booming order across the gurney. He jumps back in to action and helps manoeuvre their patient into a spare cubicle at the direction of a nurse, noting the sallow skin and laboured breathing of the female soldier getting worse by the second. It’s not his idea to bring a colleague to an already over-stretched and run-down ER when they were already at a perfectly fine army medical centre a few miles away, but he is a first-year physician serving in the army and not one to disobey a direct order (that would later come with time, fatigue and a hardened heart).

The incessant wailing of the monitors attached to his colleague echo in his ears as he takes in the sights around him and the bustle of the ER keeps up around them. He makes a point to listen to the probing of the attending currently checking the vitals of his colleague, throwing in details as asked and as prompted by his CO. He’s distracted though—he can’t help but let his attention drift to the centre of the ER where the real trauma was happening, craning his neck to try and find her again. 

The abrupt order shouts directly in his ear this time and brings him back to the room, his CO breathing heavily down his neck. He knows that he is two seconds away from a formal reprimand and spins on his heel, following his CO toward the exit. There’s something of a twinge in his chest as he realises he isn’t going to see her again before he leaves. He’s not sure what he would say to her, if he does see her, and he can’t work out what it is about her that draws him in, but he thinks he wants a chance to find out.

He’s in luck though.

She stands at a patient nearby, checking the chart and observing vitals on a screen. She’s wearing too-big glasses that are perched precariously on her nose and her scrubs are stained with blood from the previous trauma. She looks up the moment he almost collides with a young nurse—the name tag telling him he is about to do an unintended tango with a man named Jesse—and his eyes lock on hers as he manages to side-step the chaos. His breath hitches and he knows it isn’t from keeping up with the CO’s brisk strides across the room. He smiles widely, knowing the chance to do anything is fast disappearing, and half raises his hand in a greeting. He knows he looks a real sight—blood-stained fatigues, heavy boots out of place in a suburban hospital, buzzed haircut. But he grins again as she raises a questioning eyebrow at him, a smirk forming on her face, and before he has a chance to react he’s at the exit and she turns back to the monitor as it starts singing out a song of dread.

He inhales a deep breath as they exit in to the balmy LA night, and he smiles to himself.

She may not have returned his greeting, but she’s noticed him too.

He shakes his head as he pulls himself in to a waiting Humvee.

He doesn’t know what the hell it is about her, how a less than five-minute encounter with her—and not even a direct encounter—has this effect on him.

But he knows this.

He has to see her again.

**ii.**

THE NEXT TIME, it’s almost two years later and he’s off the back of his first tour.

She’s standing at a set of ambulance doors with another resident beside her, not even six feet away from him, trading barbs as they grapple with the scene in front of them. Her hair is shorter now, curled but still in a ponytail, and she’s in different coloured scrubs this time, but it’s her. She moves quickly alongside the gurney, confidence carrying her as she works to stabilise the patient and yells out answers over the other resident.

He smiles to himself as he follows them through the entrance. No longer wide-eyed and fresh-faced, he can tell right away that she’s found her place in the ER. He watches as other residents crowd around to watch her and the attending attempt with everything they have within them to save the young teenager currently flat-lining. The pace is intense, harried nurses and doctors crammed into the centre of the room, all working towards the same goal. The resident from before rounds the gurney and tries to take her spot, and he sees the look of mutiny that crosses her face as she elbows him out the way and continues CPR.

The scene in front of him is almost comical, watching her and the resident clearly fight for first place in whatever race they’re running. Somehow though, he’s sure he knows from the look of determination in her eyes that the other resident is going to come off second-best, and for a minute, he wishes he was the one in there, trading jabs with her, enjoying every second of it. He thinks he’d let her win though, but he knows he’d sure as hell enjoy riling her up just to see those blazing eyes focus on him.

He blinks and she disappears from his line of sight just as quickly as she entered it, and he spins around to try to see where she’s gone. The ER is a mess, reminding him of that summer night when he first laid eyes on her.

He must be crazy.

He doesn’t even know her. He’s never spoken to her.

And yet she invades his thoughts at any opportune moment, without permission.

The fact that he hasn’t forgotten her, the fact that he actively seeks her out now, makes him question his sanity.

He thinks about her often. Mostly in the dark of the night as the sounds of war rips through his barracks. She pops into his head at random times—when he’s elbows deep in someone’s intestines out in the field; when he sits in the quiet of the makeshift office and works through a back log of patient notes; when he lays on the ground under the lone tree in the hot night, star gazing and reciting the names of all the different types of cancer, trying to forget about the hazards of war.

He’s two seconds from asking a familiar nurse coming towards him carrying an armful of charts where he could find her—Jason? No. José? No! Jesse!—when the heavy clutch of a hand on his shoulder brings him back to earth. He sees his father in his peripheral vision and reality once again smacks him back in the face. He sighs deeply and turns to the elevator, knows that right now, he’s not going to get any chance to see her.

The doors close and at the very last minute, through some divine intervention, he catches sight of her. He’s tempted to jam his hand between the doors just so he can watch her for a few seconds longer, and it takes every ounce of his strength to resist. He doesn’t need the wrath of his father right now, not when his brother is lying six floors above them with a body full of empty bullet wounds.

His chest feels tight, and he closes his eyes—anything to savour the picture of her from today.

She’s still how he remembers. Her hair is still as brown as the coffee he drinks. Her glasses are still too big for her face. She’s still beautiful. She still does something to him.

However, at the same time, he doesn’t need more than the quick glimpse to know that despite the confidence, despite the feistiness she exudes, she looks different now. There’s a sadness lurking underneath her exterior; he notices she carries herself differently. He wonders what’s happened to her, wonders if the day in day out of traumatic injuries people inflict on themselves and each other or the inexplicable tragedies of life, are getting to her. Or if it’s something more.

He’s still desperate to see her again.

She’s gone by the time they leave his brother’s beside five hours later. The disappointment bubbles in his chest as he scans the nurses’ station and waiting room, nothing but unfamiliar faces crowding around the busy area.

He would have liked to have seen her, to throw her another smile and ask her name. Ask her out for a drink.

He tries not to worry though.

After all, he has this sense that he will see her again.

**iii.**

TRUE TO HIS word, he enters a random bar one evening a couple of months later and sees a group of semi-familiar faces crowded around a table, laughing and carrying on without a second thought.

He needs a drink to escape the exceptionally bad date he’s just managed to extract himself from, and the glow of the bar lights and sounds of cheer drew him in immediately. He catches the eye of the bartender and orders a beer, moving to the other end to try and catch the last of the game that’s playing on the small television. He takes a sip of his beer and makes small talk with the man beside him, both of them with a shared interest in the team that’s currently winning. He’s lost in the momentum of the game and the guy slapping him on the back every time their team wins a point, and he misses her entrance.

He cheers with the rest of the guys as the game ends and he orders a second drink, taking in the sights around him. He’s barely taken a sip from his bottle of beer when he realises she’s standing next to the tall African-American surgical resident he’d crossed paths with a few months ago at his brother’s bedside, and he’s frozen in his place at the bar until one of the drunken idiots sitting nearby manages to spill an entire jug of cheap beer all down his brand-new jeans. He curses underneath his breath and waves off the man’s apologies, grabbing napkins in an attempt to soak up as much of the alcohol as possible.

He looks up a few moments later and realises he can’t see her, and he peers around strangers to see if she’s hiding anywhere. The bar has filled up in the time since he arrived, and he finds himself stuck between two beefed-up dudes who are at least half a foot taller than his already tall frame. In an effort to squeeze himself out from between them, he manages to trip and slam into the side of a pretty woman standing nearby. He’s not usually this uncoordinated and down-right stupid, but he catches her before she falls over and apologises profusely, all the while trying to desperately search around the crowded bar for her.

He fails to notice the young woman’s shameless attempts at flirting with him, until she ends up shoving him slightly and he falls back against another guy at the bar.

He’s too busy trying to make his way over to the crowd from Angels before he realises that someone has a tight grip on the collar of his t-shirt, and he’s yanked back a few steps again. He whips around to find himself face to face with an angry looking man, and he sighs internally at the obvious impending altercation.

This is not how he imagines his night turning out.

As he stops himself from rolling his eyes at the macho act coming towards him, he tries to placate the hot-head, holds his hands in the surrender position and attempts to look somewhat sorry. As he does so, he catches a glimpse of her walking away from the bar and back to the group of people jovially carrying on around a table a few feet away. He brightens and is determined to make his way over there, get her attention, buy her a drink, ask her name, anything, and distracted by her presence when he feels the crack of a fist against his temple and he’s suddenly seeing triple of everything.

The last thing he remembers before waking up in a hospital bed is a young man trying to rouse him from his position on the sticky, wet floor, and cool fingers against his wrist as someone takes his pulse. He garbles a half-assed response and sees familiar dark brown eyes worriedly staring back at him, before the blackness finally overcomes him. 

He groans as he finally comes to, thinking it’s just his luck these days.

She’s nowhere to be seen in the bright lights of the ER, he realises despondently, squinting in the fluorescent glare and ignoring the pounding in his skull.

And then he promptly vomits in the sick bag someone has conveniently left beside him on the bed.

Just his luck.

**iv.**

THE SUN IS just beginning to rise as he pushes open the door to the roof, inhaling deeply as the crisp late winter air fills his lungs. He staggers away and makes his way to the edge, peering over at the early morning hustle of Los Angeles as the city wakes up. He zips up his jacket tighter, shoves his hands in the pockets of his standard issue cargo pants and blows out a sharp breath, watching as it curls up and away into the morning air. 

It takes him half a second to realise he’s not alone up here, but when he turns around, there’s no one there. Years of army training has taught him to always be on alert, but the skin on the back of his neck doesn’t prickle in that way that tells him he needs to be worried. Even so, he angles his body so he can keep an eye on the main area of the roof and casts his gaze back to city. He shivers slightly as the breeze picks up, and it tickles the short hairs around his ears as he watches the sun pop out from behind the hills. He closes his eyes, stops for a moment to just listen and come down from the high of being a part of a first-response team and saving a life. Adrenaline still pumps through his veins and he takes several more breaths to ease his way back into a more normal rhythm. It had been his CO’s idea for him to start doing ride-alongs with the LAFD, to keep up his field experience whilst he isn’t on deployment, and he is finally taking a breather away from the arrogant and incompetent ass he’s stuck with for the next twelve weeks.

The only saving grace is that many of the cases bring him back here, to her hospital.

At least, he still thinks it’s her hospital. It hasn’t been that long, a little over six months since he saw her last in the grimy bar.

He’s searches the ER high and low the times he’s been back with the paramedics, but each time she is nowhere to be found. He wonders whether she’s transferred to a different program or is doing a rotation in another part of the hospital. He wonders if she’s married by now and maybe has taken time off work to have children. Or transferred hospitals all together. He doesn’t know if she is even in LA anymore.

He shakes his head.

Four years later and she’s still on his mind.

Girlfriends have come—and gone quickly—but she somehow still manages to occupy the deep crevices of his mind.

He thinks he’s forever destined to purgatory, to never know her name, see those brown eyes from across a hospital floor again.

He’s not sure what he’ll do if he doesn’t ever get a chance to at least say hello. Properly.

He wonders if she thinks of him. If she ever gave him another passing thought in her own mind, after those two short encounters. If she even remembers him.

He’s lost in his thoughts, his focus on the pink and purple sky, when he hears the short scrape of a metal chair against a concrete floor. It’s faint, but his senses are sharp, and he trains his eyes on the area where he thinks the noise came from. He straightens, ready to act, when the wind is almost knocked out of him.

It’s her.

She appears from around the corner, hidden away from him earlier, bundled up in a hospital jacket and holding an empty paper cup.

She startles at the sight of someone else standing there, her hand flies to her chest as she realises she isn’t alone in what she thinks of as her sacred space.

It takes him two seconds to snap out of his shock and he grins at her. He feels his confidence falter when she cocks her head slightly, confusion marring her features as he continues to grin like an idiot at her.

It’s then that he realises she doesn’t remember him.

His smile drops from his face and he takes a half step back, watching as she eyes him curiously. She’s still standing there, hair blowing in the wind and teeth chattering slightly in the cool morning. It’s obvious she is trying to place him. Or rapidly assessing if he is some crazy person up here to either jump to his peril or take her down.

He can tell she isn’t able to place him, and he shovels down the defeat that pools in his stomach and makes his legs feel like dead weights. 

She inches slightly towards the door, gives him a placating smile and in return, he nods once back at her. He turns back to the view—the lesser one, in his opinion—and sighs underneath his breath.

He waits for the sound of the door opening, but when the creak of the handle doesn’t ring out in the silence, he glances up to find her standing there, one hand on the door and the other still clutching the paper cup.

Their eyes meet again, and he doesn’t realise he is holding his breath. Her mouth opens slightly, as what he thinks is finally a look of recognition darting across her tired face, and he tries his best to not look so hopeful.

It’s then that he decides to just be bold. After all, he’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

And it’s her. It’s his chance.

Just as he manages to inelegantly blurt out, “Can I interest you in joining me for a coffee?”, she speaks as well, and her soft and melodious voice instantaneously sends him weak in the knees.

“You look like you could use a coffee, Army boy.”

\--


	2. Part II

PART II

**v.**

HE PUNCHES THE weights bag with all of his might, sends a spray of perspiration across the stretched fabric and he’s sure he feels the beginning of blood pooling in the gloves. The heat of the sun pounds across his back as he lays one savage punch after another against the heavy bag. The sound of the chains clinking as the bag takes the beating echoes through his ears, grunts dispelling from his tightly coiled mouth as he focuses all of his energy into the act.

Unbelievable.

Punch.

Twelve weeks.

Punch—punch.

Twelve frigging weeks.

Punch—punch—punch.

All he got was twelve weeks. Twelve weeks before he was unceremoniously shoved back into another deployment. Twelve frigging weeks before he was told in no uncertain terms that he was required to facilitate the new field doctor training program and that it wasn’t optional.

A low growl clings in his throat as he continues the assault on the punching bag, and all he thinks of, as he throws punch after punch, is the look on her face when she noticed his CO walking up behind him when they were standing on the steps in front of the hospital, that awful look of understanding.

All he can think of is her.

The first coffee date. That tiny little smirk as she finally remembered who he was. He was sure the shit-eating grin on his face would have scared her off, but two hours later, the morning sun bright in the sky, he leaned in close and asked for her number outside of a diner. He’d noticed the hesitation on her part, but eventually, she scribbled it down for him on a piece of paper and shoved it in his hand. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her in that moment, but he held back, knew that eventually the timing would be right.

The second coffee date, at the tail end of long shifts for both of them. He had found her sitting against the wall outside the ER, away from the ambulance bay, knees drawn to her chest as she took in deep breaths, her stethoscope tightly wound around her fingers. He had wordlessly sat down next to her, not even caring that the paramedic he’d partnered with that day was scowling at him as he cleaned the rig all by himself. She had lost another patient, a young man, and he had untangled her stethoscope and took her hand in his. They sat in the diner for nearly three hours, some of it in silence, and eventually, she told him snippets of her story. The tragic death of her fiancé, a head on collision, four years ago. He instantly knew that was the reason behind the underlying change in her demeanour that second time he saw her.

The stolen meals between ridiculous shifts. Her favourite flowers (he’s thankful he managed to weasel that information out of her best friend). Hours spent up on the roof of the hospital, chattering endlessly and sometimes sitting in a comfortable quiet. Him sharing stories of his mother, dead fifteen years ago from ALS. Her telling him about her parents, alive and still together, living in a condo in a sunny Florida retirement village (such a cliché, she giggles). She listened as he told her about his father and brother, his hand clutched tightly between hers. He murmured words of sympathy as she spoke of the tragic cases that always seem to make their way to Angels, and he took note of the ones that seemed to dim her spirit a little.

He tried his best to be patient, to not move too quickly and to go at her pace. He didn’t want to scare her away, knew that his feelings were as clear and as strong as ever, but he wanted to make doubly sure she was on the same page as him. He wasn’t entirely certain, there was still some tentativeness about her, but he knew when he first saw her that he’d wait for her for however long he had to. He would never push, at least not in the wrong way. He knew enough to know that would only end in disappointment and regret.

The cumulative night, when she finally said yes, he chuckled in complete happiness as he stepped across the threshold and into her bed.

All he has to do is close his eyes and he can see her, eyes bright in the dark as he hovers over her, pressing kisses across whatever part of her skin his lips can find.

He knew from the moment he saw her it would be momentous, and he was right.

He was done for.

That was eleven weeks ago.

And now, here he is, definitely on the other side of thirty-one, tired, pissed off, and on his second tour.

Not with her.

He writes her letters as often as he can, between the gruelling training schedule and the field work, the casualties of war filling up his temporary ER and his heart. He doesn’t hear from her often, and he knows it’s because she works ridiculous hours along with spending every waking moment vying for the attending position currently up for grabs at the hospital. He smiles as he thinks of her tenacity; he knows that when he returns she will have gotten the position. He has no doubts.

He lands a final series of punches, a solid one-two-three jab, and leans forward on his knees to catch his ragged breath.

She fills his head and he closes his eyes, tries to let the memory of her drown out every scream, explosion and gunfire sound of this war.

He has a responsibility to the Army, one that he readily joined up to and one he will not forsake, but every now and then, in the quiet of the night or the free time that so rarely happens out here, he thinks of what his life will be like when he finally discharges himself from his duty.

He’ll take her on a real date. Not some pilfered moment between a sixteen-hour shift or a twelve-hour ride along.

He’ll cook her a real breakfast. Eggs on toast, his speciality. Real coffee. Not the mud you get in the hospital doctor’s lounge or the diluted stuff they serve in the diner.

He’ll drive them to the beach in his ratty old SUV and they’ll sit in the cool sand, fingers intertwined, watch the sunset instead of a sunrise for a change.

He’ll eventually give her a key and ask her to move in with him, find space in his tiny house for her things to fill the gaps around his.

He’ll absolutely buy a ring. The best ring she deserves. He’ll get down on one knee, on the roof—their sacred spot, he thinks—and ask her to do him the honour of being his wife. He’ll be sure to tell her that he will always support her dream of being the best trauma doctor, that he’ll stand beside her every step of the way as she climbs the proverbial ladder, that nothing will make him prouder to be a part of her journey.

He’ll take the job at the hospital, so that he’ll work alongside her and watch in awe as she takes the reins and continues to show everyone just how damn good she is at her job.

He’ll buy them a bigger house, and argue with her endlessly over furniture and wall coverings and curtains. And maybe he’ll kiss her senseless and try to convince her to christen every room with him (he doesn’t think that will be something she’ll back down from).

He’ll give her as many babies as she wants. A house filled with brown-haired blue-eyed children running them off their feet, a house filled with laughter and light and tenderness, nothing like he ever experienced after his mother passed away and his father re-married. Children who never, ever, feel the wrath of a disappointed father with expectations set beyond anything reasonable. Children who know they are loved through and through, with no doubts ever crossing their innocent and sweet minds.

He’ll give her anything she ever wants. Everything. All of him. The good, the bad and the hidden parts no one else is allowed to see.

And he wants it all.

With her.

He just has to get home, first.

And hope like hell that she’ll be there, waiting for him.

He sighs and watches the sun begin its descent, wonders what she is doing in this very moment.

He knows he’s a complete goner.

**vi.**

THE ER IS eerily calm as the doors open with a whoosh, and he steps across the threshold with a boldness and determinedness unlike anything else before.

His sweat-stained army regulation t-shirt clings to his chest as he takes in the smell of the hospital and lets the air-conditioning waft over him, the LA summer an almost cool relief from the relentless and intimidating heat of the desert. He would have changed into something a little more clean and pleasant smelling if he was a patient man, but when it comes to her, he is anything but.

He scans the room quickly, ignores the curious looks from others as he stands on the tips of his toes to see if she is here. There are plenty of new faces swarming the place, people he doesn’t recognise and people he thinks he vaguely remembers. He catches the tail end of Jesse as he goes barrelling past with a patient in respiratory distress; the unfamiliar doctor shouting orders as he rushes alongside the wheelchair. The swinging doors to the epicentre of the ER crash against his back as he stands still, taking in the scene before him. It’s busy, but not manic, and his eyes flit quickly around to try and catch her long brown hair or those ridiculous too-big glasses.

She’s nowhere to be seen though, and he feels the beginnings of panic or despair—or something—rise in his chest. He can’t think of where else she’d be. She wasn’t at her house—her car wasn’t in the driveway—and she wasn’t at his; he hurriedly recalls that they never made it to his house in the too little time they’d had together before he unceremoniously had to leave. The only other logical explanation is the hospital. Given she isn’t trapped in the confines of the ER, he wonders whether she’s even at work until he sees her name on the patient board and realises she’s here, somewhere.

He's almost about to give up hope when he catches the eye of her best friend. The raised eyebrows and look of surprise quickly make way to realisation, and Jesse nods once towards the doctor’s lounge after a moment too long. He sighs in relief and throws him a grateful thank you, the other man eyeing him warily as he goes back to his telephone call.

The lounge is down the hall and he all but runs there, only stopping to help an elderly woman back into her bed as she frantically reaches for anybody for support. He waves off her gratitude and in turn, misses the knowing look in her eye as she watches him stride down the walkway towards the closed doors.

He stops for a split second outside the door, peering through the glass to try and see if she is indeed where Jesse intimated. At first glance, the room appears empty but at a second look, a proper look, he realises she’s in the far corner at the small table, her back to him and hunched over something. The sigh of relief that escapes alarms him a little, and the thought of only being ten feet away from her is now too much to resist. He pushes gently through the door, and watches as she doesn’t even flinch at the sound. Whatever she’s doing, she’s completely engrossed, which doesn’t surprise him in the slightest.

As he takes a step closer, he swears all of the noise from outside of the lounge comes to a screaming halt, and he holds a breath as he makes his way over to the table. It’s only as his shadow begins to edge across her line of sight that she looks up. The second her eyes meet his, she’s on her feet, astonishment written across her face and his last letter to her crumpled in her left hand.

It’s been a long eight months since he said ‘see you soon’ to her and she’s every bit as he remembers her to be.

Resolute. Soft. Yielding. Courageous. Strong.

Beautiful.

Her hair is shorter again, tumbling around her shoulders as she looks at him through bright eyes. She’s still not said anything, and he waits for her to make the first move, doesn’t want to startle her again.

He tries to picture what she must see in front of her—hair buzzed so short he swears you can see his skull, dust covered fatigues, the universal medic sign stitched into the sleeve of his khaki t-shirt, sun-tanned (okay, slightly burnt), three-day old stubble that itches like hell, blue eyes weary but so very grateful to be looking at her. He knows he must look a right treat, straight from the plane, but there is no stopping him on his mission to come to her.

He stretches his fingers out towards her, smiles shyly as she looks from his face to his hand. All of sudden she’s enveloped in his arms, her face in the crook of his neck, his buried in her hair. He can’t believe it.

Finally, 8 months later.

But really, five years later.

He’s here.

With her.

She’s in his arms again.

He’s not sure if it is her trembling or him, but as he tightens his hold on her, breathes her in, he realises it doesn’t matter.

He’s home.

**vii.**

THE DAYS BLUR into each other after that, and he does his best to try and savour each and every moment.

They date. Properly.

He tells her he loves her over burgers and beers down at the pier. She smiles and waits until he is devouring an ice-cream before she returns the sentiment. He chokes on the rocky road treat and she laughs until eventually he joins in as well and ends up smearing ice-cream across her face in his delight. 

She eventually moves in. And just like he imagined, they argue about everything down to the kind of bed linen they each want.

They’re both stubborn as hell, tempers that match each other’s. He quickly realises she’s not like anyone else he has ever been with, that she’s independent as all out and doesn’t need him molly-coddling her along the way about anything.

He gives her that ring. He finds it on a whim in an antique jewellery store one day and keeps it hidden in the back of the drawer, away from her delicates, until the right time comes along and he surprises her with it. He thinks he is going to burst from joy when there is no hesitation in her answer, and he kisses her with everything he has after he carefully puts the ring on in its rightful place.

He starts the ride-along arrangement again, and they fight about it for weeks and weeks until they finally come to an understanding. She realises it’s what he wants to do, that he misses that level of adrenaline that being out in the field brings, so unlike the adrenaline that comes with running around a frantic ER. He knows she doesn’t like it, though.

They marry on a cool late autumn day, a date they had picked out only a few months ago. It’s a small evening ceremony, with only their closest ER friends, her parents and two sisters, his father. His brother stands up for him and they both wear their medals with pride, his uniform freshly starched and a stark contrast to the ivory dress she picks out. He thinks they look pretty perfect together when the photos come back, and he proudly keeps one stashed in his wallet and pulls it out to look at it more than he’ll ever admit. He thinks his heart is going to burst out of his chest when he rummages through her locker one day looking for a spare t-shirt and realises one of the photos is taped to the back of the locker, their unadulterated smiling faces staring back at him.

Their son comes screaming into the world nearly eighteen months later; no one is surprised that the baby is a complete carbon copy of him. Matching blue eyes stare back at him in the quiet of the winter night as she sleeps soundly next to them. He marvels at the wonder that is their newborn, and vows then and there that he will do his best to be there and protect his son no matter what. He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that he lives to see his own children grow up, graduate from college and start families of their own. Love them with everything he is and has.

They’re in for a complete surprise the next time, when that first routine ultrasound unashamedly tells them that they’ve somehow managed to make not one, but two babies. He laughs in pure joy whilst she stares at the screen in shock, and he knows that a thousand worrisome thoughts of their jobs and their house and their eldest son race through her mind. He also knows the second she lays her eyes on them, the moment their second son and their daughter are placed in her arms, that all of her worries fade in to the background. He laughs to himself; his legs feel a little wobbly as he stands next to the bed looking at the three of them, realises the magnitude of what they now have again, and he whispers his love and gratitude to her as he eases himself on to the space beside her and cradles his hour-old daughter in his arms.

She’s of course right, and they quickly realise they’ve outgrown the house. He keeps his promise and buys them a bigger house, the one she falls in love with the moment they see it, and they spend months arguing over the colour of the carpet and the tiles in the bathroom until he finally throws his tools down in frustration and shuts her up with a kiss that ends up to leading to much more than either intended (he’s lying, he always wants her). She ends up choosing the bathroom tiles and he the carpet, and they move their family in the next summer, on the hottest day of the year and during one of the busiest periods of their careers. He’s utterly exhausted as he crawls into bed that first night and wraps himself around her in the cool air of the room. She hums in content as his warm hands slide across her waist, presses a kiss to the side of her neck, and he can’t think of anything better than her and their children in the house he renovated just for them.

There’s a shoot out one day when he’s on a ride-along, and he thinks he’s okay until he gets back home in the early morning to an empty house and realises he can’t control his breathing. She finds him in the bathroom not long after she returns from school drop offs, hunched over the sink and drawing in deep breaths, shuddering uncontrollably. She peels him away and sits him down on the cool tiles, kneels in front of him and holds his face in her hands—demands that he look her in the eyes as he breathes in and out in sync with her. It doesn’t take long for his breath to return to normal and when it does, he hangs his head in shame. He thinks he has done well enough to push the effects of two tours down far enough that it doesn’t bother him, but apparently all it takes is one sound of a particular gun shot to trigger a thousand memories he has buried. She sits down on the floor next to him, head on his shoulder and arm tight around his waist, listens as some of those memories bubble to the surface and he shares some of the burden of his time away. It takes months after that episode, and a few more occur, and he ends up dragging his weary body to the local veteran’s centre and sits down with the counsellor, talking until his throat is raw. He knows it isn’t a cure, and he knows that he has a road ahead of him, but he’s willing to do what it takes to help his heart hurt a little less and to make sure he’s the man his family needs.

She finds him on the roof one late afternoon, and she’s a little out of breath from running up the stairs as fast as she can as soon as she heard the news. He hunches over the side of the wall, gazing blankly at the city as the sky turns red and orange and life goes on with no thought to his pain. Her hand is on his back and then her arms are around his waist before he even says anything. They stay there until the stars are twinkling in the sky, before he finally speaks, his throat thick with tears and eyes glassy with sorrow. She helps him navigate the funeral, argues with his father on his behalf about minute details, keeps their children shielded from his raw grief but quick to ensure they are there to give him the love he needs. He frames the folded flag in glass and hangs it square in the middle of their office, and he fights back tears as he stands up straight and salutes his only brother. He can’t stop them falling as his oldest son comes to a stop beside him and does the same.

They decide to open their home and hearts to a young girl, one who has seen more hurt and pain and agony than any fourteen-year-old should have in their lifetime. He’s a little pissed she doesn’t talk to him about it before he comes home to find a strange kid sitting on the couch between the boys eating his favourite cereal, but it takes only a milli-second before he agrees it’s the right thing to do. They make every effort to allow the girl to feel like she belongs to this family, and it’s hard and at times they question whether they did the right thing, but at the end of the day, he knows he’ll never compete with his wife’s generous heart and that is all that matters.

He gets a new ride-along partner, a woman named Rox, and it causes their biggest fight to date. He’s still a little raw from the loss of his brother and she from the setbacks they’ve encountered with the adoption agency, and the words they spit out at each other in the basement, away from prying eyes and sensitive ears, are awful. She storms away from him, leaving a trail of agony and disappointment and he punches a wall in absolute disgust at their behaviour. His knuckles are bruised and sore for weeks, but it’s nothing on the pain he’s caused her and her on him. In the dark of the night they finally blurt out apologies and agreements, after too long of a time, and then as if nothing had happened, she doesn’t bat an eyelid when the young paramedic starts to pick him up from the house at the start of their shifts, and doesn’t glare at him when the younger kids crowd around Rox, asking all sorts of questions, wanting to know the gory details about the harder side of their jobs that neither of them care to share with any of their kids. He develops a new appreciation for his wife, knows that whilst he will remain ever hers, and that she trusts him wholeheartedly, it’s still hard for her to see him with a younger, more agile woman at work. He makes it up to her again and again, determined to show her—and tell her—just how much she is the only woman worth having in his life.

They’re fooling around on a rare day off, the house free of kids and responsibilities, luxuriating in the sanctuary of their room, when he finds the lump. They both freeze and neither of them have to say a word to know what it can be. The terror that consumes him is more than anything he’s experienced before, even when he was in the middle of a war. She bats his hands away and does her best to ignore it, and his insistence on getting it checked out, but he can’t let it go. They spend an agonising two weeks waiting for the results of the tests and the biopsy, and then more blood work, and then the surgery, before they finally get the news that it’s not going to take her away from him and their kids. It shakes her—hell, it unravels him—and he spends weeks glued to her side before she finally yells at him in the middle of the ER to leave her be and go back to work. The look on Jesse’s face as he walks past tells him that he too has been on the brunt of her outrage in recent times, and he pats the other man on the shoulder in solidarity and invites him over for dinner next week. It takes a while for the incessant need to check her every time she’s within reach to fade, and from then on, it’s always in the back of his mind, the notion that he could have very nearly lost her way too soon.

He finally fulfils his military obligations, and his family are in the front row as he receives his medals and certificates. He wishes his brother and father could have been there alongside his wife and children, but he knows that was never going to happen.

Their kids graduate college one by one. The eldest qualifies for a residency program in New York, another takes a place at a medical school in Chicago, one decides to enter the veterinarian field, and their youngest decides on the other path and joins the LAFD. He’s not surprised in the slightest that all four of their children end up in the medical field somehow, despite the careful attempts they make to guide them to whatever career they wish to pursue. It takes his breath away one day when he’s in the middle of talking with an obtuse patient and he looks up to find his daughter barrelling into the ER alongside a gurney, shouting facts and figures and every bit the medical professional she is. If he squints carefully, he thinks he’s looking at his wife all those years ago fresh out of medical school and on her way to ruling the residents in the ER. He smiles to himself as his wife walks past him right at the moment, a pointed look on her face and a gesture to get back to the patient, she knows he distracted. He can’t help but beam proudly as he watches her escort their daughter out of the ER, an equally pleased look on her face as their baby happily spouts off information about the latest case she brought in.

Happy tears roll down his cheeks as he watches his son stand proudly at the altar, ready to marry the love of his life. He gains a daughter-in-law that day, and then not long after that, three sons-in-law. Babies follow soon after and all of a sudden, he can’t believe he is a grandfather when it feels like only yesterday they had found out they were going to be parents. The house feels full again as his oldest son moves back to LA to take up a surgical role at Angels and their grandchildren run around the backyard squealing in delight at the feel of the soft grass beneath their toes.

He retires first, when he busts his knee a second time and they decide a complete knee reconstruction is the only—and best—option. He pouts for days, and is sure that his stubbornness and crankiness is making her work extra shifts just to not be around him, but he eventually realises this new way of life allows more time with his grandkids and to potter around in the shed he finally builds, tinkering around on the old Mustang he bought years ago and never finished. She retires not long after, passing on the residency director role to her favourite former resident (one of his favourites, too) and they spend more time together, he even convinces her to travel some more and they finally get the chance to explore Europe properly.

He constantly has to pinch himself, at this life they’ve created. He’s in awe of what they’ve done, beyond proud, and not at all ashamed to show it. To tell her. He reminds her, all the time, in between the arguments, and the hellish days, the monotony of family and home life, and the long nights when work takes over.

He’s happy.

He loves his life. Has loved every minute of it, with her.

He’s dozing in his recliner, his senses mostly still on alert as he naps in the sunshine. He can hear her pottering around in the kitchen, the kettle whistling and the sound of teacups clinking against saucers. His youngest granddaughter is around somewhere, he can hear her giggles as she inevitably finds something to cause chaos with.

He’s just about on his way to a happy dreamland when he feels a thump against his chest, and he groans in pain.

The thump happens again, not long after, and he tries to open his mouth to tell his rambunctious grandchild to stop jumping on him again. The last thing he needs is another cracked rib. He still hasn’t heard the end of it from the last time.

It happens a third time before he realises it’s not from the baby of the family jumping on his chest like she’s prone to do.

He can’t open his eyes, he can’t breathe.

He tries to call out her name, but his voice is trapped in his throat.

And the sounds of their home fade away till there’s a solid beat of nothing. 

\--


	3. Part III

PART III

**viii.**

“ONCE MORE, CHARGE the paddles!”

“Clear!”

“Pulse check!”

“No pulse!”

“Charge the paddles again, quickly let’s go!”

“Clear!”

“Pulse check!”

“I got one!”

“Okay, he needs the OR. Call them and tell them we’re on our way!”

“On it!”

**ix.**

THE SOUNDS OF a steady rhythm filled the room, the machine beeps quietly in the dead of the night. He feels cool fingers against his wrist on his pulse point, and he tries to muster up the strength to open his eyes or at least mutter some semblance of words. The smell of her perfume intertwined with hospital-grade disinfectant invades his nostrils and he tries with every ounce of his being to open his eyes, just so he can focus on her face and know that everything is okay in his world.

He really isn’t sure what the hell is going on, but he feels like his body is made out of lead and his chest burns something cruel. He tries to do a mental check of what he can feel wrong, but his mind is foggy, and his thoughts are jumbled. He feels like his body is trapped in concrete. He remembers everything and nothing, and it scares him to his very core.

The room is quiet except for the sounds of the monitors and her quiet breathing. It fades into the distance as whatever drug pushed into his system dulls his senses even more and he slips into the abyss of a dreamless sleep. The last coherent thought he remembers filtering through his mind is that he hopes that whatever happens, when he wakes up the next time, she’s there again, beside him, waiting for him.

He wakes what feels like months later (in reality, he’s later told it was four days). He’s alone in the room, and he moves his head slightly to try and see if she’s anywhere nearby. The movement brings an extraordinary amount of pain coursing through his body, and he cries out in agony before he passes out once again.

The next time he wakes, he feels a little lighter. The pain has dulled somewhat, the sun is peeking through the blinds of his room, and he startles when he sees she’s standing at the end of his bed, hurriedly reading through his medical chart. She looks different, he realises, once he blinks the effects of the drugs away a few times and settles his gaze on her. She’s certainly not the much older version of his wife that he last remembers seeing; and she doesn’t appear to be the soft but feisty version he married all those years ago. He feels the panic rising in his chest—he’s sure the monitors are going to give him away shortly—and so he does his best to calm his breath to try and buy more time to take a good look at her.

He can’t work out what is going on.

What year it is? How old is he? How old is she?

What happened to him?

More importantly, what happened to her?

There’s a hardened look about her, a cool detachment simmering under the surface. The face of someone who has been through trauma. Something so big that it has irrevocably changed her down to her very core.

He knew her.

And he knows something isn’t right.

He knows her. He knows everything about her.

She double-knots her sneakers so she doesn’t have to worry about laces coming undone when running around a busy ER. She prefers strong, plain coffee, none of that fancy stuff. She’s allergic to strawberries. She has a freckle on her left hip that he always manages to find, and a scar that runs right across her knee from when she fell over as a kid. She always finishes whatever book she’s reading, even if she dislikes it, and she doesn’t read the final page just to find out what happens in the end, like he does.

And she’s the only one who can assuage his grumpiness and soothe his pain after a trying day, sometimes simply through a look or soft smile.

He knows her better than he knows himself.

Something is off, here, in this moment, in this time.

He hazards another look at her, and he casts his eyes all over her figure, taking all of her in. It’s then that he sees that she’s not wearing his engagement ring, or the matching wedding band he slipped on her finger all those years ago.

It’s at that realisation when he unintentionally groans and tempers the desire to howl in agony.

What the hell has happened to them?

She jumps when she realises he’s awake, and in a split second she’s calling for a nurse and she’s by his side, checking his vitals and making sure he’s okay.

He’s not okay.

He doesn’t know how he ended up here.

In whatever version of this life he’s in.

He’s gasping for air as he realises she’s treating him in a manner he’s never experienced before, strictly a doctor who’s trying to ensure their patient survives.

He’s moaning in agony as he realises she’s not looking at him in the way he’s become accustomed to over 40-plus years. That she looks as though she barely recognises him.

He’s screaming internally as he finally realises she has no clue who he is.

The whisper sound of her name—always laced with love—escapes his lips as he succumbs to the torture of whatever reality he’s found himself in.

As he closes his eyes again, he misses the look of confusion she shares with the nurse—the man he’d come to know as a friend, as part of his family, their Jesse.

**x.**

THE TICKING OF the clock wakes him this time, and when he opens his eyes, a different doctor is standing to the side of his bed, making notes on the chart.

She realises at that same moment that he’s awake, and before he can fully open his eyes, she’s shining a light in them, checking his pulse, asking him a barrage of questions.

He does his best to stare her down, wants to will her away and get his wife in here instead, get some answers.

He’s fresh out of luck though, as another doctor and nurse enter instead, people he’s never seen before in his life, shooting questions at the other doctor and following orders to hang more fluids and note down his vitals.

There’s finally a break in the conversation and he manages to croak out a request for his wife.

The doctor who was in the room earlier quickly scans his chart and shakes her head slightly at the other doctor. He feels something akin to despair engulfing him, and he yells out that he needs to see his wife. His kids. Anyone.

He’s chanting her name, over and over and over again, when they make the decision to send him for another CT. He protests that he doesn’t need it, that he just needs her.

When it’s all over, he’s so exhausted from the effort of trying to get her to come to him that he ends up slipping into another blackened sleep.

Whatever is going on, he’s damn sure it’s wrong.

It’s not how things are supposed to be.

**xi.**

THEY FINALLY GIVE him some of the answers.

He wants to scream at the audacity of it all.

He doesn’t understand.

The rig he was travelling on as part of a ride-along was blown up, caught in the middle of a cross fire, and he barely made it out alive. The paramedic he’d been travelling with had a few bruises and a head laceration but was otherwise unharmed.

He doesn’t remember any of it.

He asks for her again, but she never returns.

They tell him that he isn’t married. He doesn’t have four children. He doesn’t have doctor privileges at Angels.

He is discharged two weeks later with a brace on one leg and his shoulder in a splint, stitches all the way up the back of his head, and still no sign of her.

There is a nursing service waiting for him when he returns to a half-renovated house on the outskirts of the city, and he refuses help to get up the stairs and into bed. His temper eventually sends the nurse away and he makes do with the limited functions he has.

He learns that he is still a fully serving member of the Army, and he just about cries with desolation when he realises that once he has recovered from his injuries, he is to report to his CO for his next assignment.

The date of a newspaper sitting on the table sets him off next, scares him blind, and when he wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t remember leaving a trail of destruction through the kitchen up to the bedroom.

He howls in rage when he opens his phone and can’t find her number, and bellows in absolute sheer fury when he realises he can’t get behind the wheel of his car to drive straight back down to Angels to find her.

It’s a long week of sulking and refusing the care of the new nurse and surviving on noodles and beer before he finally attempts to get in the SUV again.

As he’s driving along the freeway, careful to not twist his shoulder too much, he realises bitterly that at no time during his hospitalisation or recovery has he seen or heard from his father. He assumes in this reality his brother is still dead. He chortles at the vicious thoughts and presses his foot down further on the accelerator, anger now seeping into veins as he steadily makes his way to the hospital.

He parks haphazardly across two car bays, ignoring the look of disgust from another driver as he flings open the door and tries to get out of the car with one crutch and a messed-up shoulder. He probably shouldn’t have driven so soon but he is sick and tired of waiting. He needs to see her.

The doors open and he hobbles over the threshold, holding his breath as he frantically searches for any sight of her.

His heart sinks as he realises that once again, she’s nowhere to be found.

**xii.**

THE NEXT TIME he finds himself on the roof, he realises he’s holding his breath again as he peeks around the corner and finds it empty. There’s nobody but him.

It’s between seven weeks since he’s woken up to this nightmare.

Seven weeks since he last saw her face.

Six weeks since he begged a doctor for answers.

Five weeks since he drove to her house, hoping to find her there and instead finding a young family who were incredibly disturbed at his ashen appearance and desperate questions.

Four weeks since he cornered Jesse in the parking lot, pleading for any information about her. Trying to ignore the complete and utter confusion across the other man’s face, a part of him knowing that in Jesse’s eyes, he is a complete stranger and not someone who shared beers and stories of her and played cards all those nights.

Three weeks since he sat across from the ambulance bay, waiting for any sighting of her.

Two weeks since he broke down in the counsellor’s office, finally unleashing all of the confusion and pain of the hell he currently is in. Trying to digest the runaway thoughts and explain himself.

One week since he realised that he’s woken up in a reality that is not what he expected to wake up to, that his brain has spent time making up memories and dreams and hopes and fears in the time it took for him to be thrown from the rig to when he woke up to her face peering over him, a set of defibrillator paddles blasting him back into this damn world.

It’s taken that time since to realise he—and nobody else—has any explanation for what he dreamed.

The counsellor can’t explain it, other than some screwed up explanation about dreams versus realities in a traumatised mind that has seen and been through more than the average person.

He doesn’t tell anyone that he cries himself to sleep most nights, thinking of her, touching the empty space beside him in the bed, wondering where the hell he has gone wrong.

That all he can see are her dark eyes, staring back at him, laughing at him, smiling at him. The feel of her hands on his waist, her arms tightly wound around him, her breath warm against his neck, her hair tickling his nose, her legs entwined with his in the privacy of their room.

The arguments—the ones where he was sure it would lead to the end, and the ones where they relished in the making up part. The stolen moments—the kisses in her office; in the elevator; giving the ER a damn good show when Jesse busted them in a supply closet, second trimester hormones getting the better of her (and him). Twice.

Two pairs of blue eyes and two of brown—eagerly awaiting another story, another hug, another piggy back ride, another forbidden piece of candy, help with homework and college applications and driving tests. Four sets of trusting eyes, relying on him to guide and protect them and help them find their paths in life. Four sets of innocent eyes that blink sleepily up at him at night, waiting for cuddles and whispers of love and adoration, one last glass of water or bathroom break or assurance that he’ll be there in the morning.

His mind is a cruel wasteland. Tricking him with fake memories of a life he has always dreamed of.

Of children who bore his surname and a combination of their best features, amazing little personalities he helped shape.

Of a wife who was his equal in all of the ways that counted. His best friend. His partner. His reason for living.

He’s scared because the memories are fading. It’s not at all gradual, and it hurts more than he cares for, but it’s happening.

It’s a sucker punch to his gut, one minute remembering moments as clear as day but realising they’re not real, and then knowing that he is going to wake up one day soon and forget little faces full of his hopes and dreams.

He’s unable to describe the absolute devastation that courses through his body on a daily basis.

The sorrow that threatens to take a hold of him.

The unyielding despair at a life he has lost that wasn’t even real to begin with.

He wonders what will become of him, when the last vestiges of a make-believe life slips away from him for good. When he closes his eyes and realises it’s been taken away from him for a second time.

He wonders how on earth he will ever be able to recover from this.

He wonders if he ever will.

**xiii.**

IT’S ANOTHER SUNSET. Another day has passed.

He’s standing in his spot on the roof, tucked in the corner and keeping an eye on the city that’s slowly winding down. Sirens wail, and a car honks its horn in the distance somewhere. He counts the number of people hurriedly making their way down the street to either catch the bus home or get a drink or find their thirty minutes of exercise.

It’s quiet for a long time. He manages to drown out the sounds of the city; the thoughts echoing through his tired and battered mind.

He’s not sure how long he’s been standing here, watching life go on, when he hears a noise.

He whips around as fast as his recovering body will allow him—this damn knee is going to cause him a lot of grief in the future—and he stops short at the sight before him.

The air drains out of his body.

It’s her.

“Who else would I be?”

He realises he spoke out loud, and he falters. Her eyebrow raises at him from her position in the doorway, curiosity washing across her tired face.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps out, shakes his head slightly. He huffs out a short laugh, notices that she hasn’t moved from her spot against the door.

He can’t believe this.

After all this time, here he is, finally looking at her.

He’s torn between running towards her as fast as his broken body will let him and crushing her in his arms, and letting her come to him in her own time.

He thinks he might die from the anticipation.

She lets the heavy door swing shut behind her, still eyeing him warily. The sound of the door clanking into place breaks the silence and he continues to stare at her for a long moment, searching her face, disbelief coursing through him that he’s finally looking at her again.

If she’s uncomfortable with the fixed attention she doesn’t show it, and he breathes in deep, feeling as though something is righting itself in his messy world.

She doesn’t move though, and it takes every ounce of him to not deflate at the fact she’s still not sure who he is.

He knows that his reality is worlds apart from hers, especially his imagined one. It breaks his heart to know that he doesn’t know all the parts of her in this life. Who she really is, what she’s been through, what’s caused the lines on her face and the underlying anguish that bubbles around her—as much as she tries to squash it down, he sees her.

He knows without a shadow of a doubt that he wants to know anyway. He needs to know.

He needs her.

He needs whatever he can get of her, in this life.

He can’t live without her.

Whichever version he gets.

He loves her.

He’ll spend the rest of whatever time they have together proving it to her. He’ll wait the rest of his life for her, if that’s what she needs.

He’ll do anything.

It’s now or never, he decides. They can’t just stand here in silence staring at each other.

“Would you like to get a drink, with me?” he blurts out, just she decides to speak again as well.

He doesn’t miss the tiny flicker of recognition in her eyes at that very moment, and he thinks his heart might just jump out of his chest and show his hand before he has a chance to say so himself.

And once again, her soft and melodious voice sends him weak in the knees in a matter of seconds.

“You look like you could use a drink, Army boy.”

\--

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


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